When you are doing competitive intelligence (CI), you are relying on your intelligence to drive your research and analysis. But your brain, like any other part of your body, needs proper care and conditioning. What follows here and in the next 2 parts are a few notes on what works for me – and for others as well. Your suggestions and comments are, of course, very welcome.

First, let me deal with relaxing your mind.

Look at the things that you do to relax, such as reading and games. I’m a great believer that you should continually change these things. By that, I mean changing the “subject matter” of the material you are reading (or the games that you are playing) for something that’s new and different.

With respect to reading, my practice is to change magazine subscriptions on a regular basis. So I stop reading the Economist when a subscription ends, instead of just renewing it, even though I really like it. Then I start reading another magazine that it entirely different in terms of slant or subject. Think about it. For example, if you regularly read only Bloomberg BusinessWeek try switching to Smithsonian magazine. For The Atlantic switch out to National Review or Biblical Archaeology Review.

This holds true with books. Read mysteries? Try histories. Read archeology? Try psychology. The same is true with games. Do you do crossword puzzles? What about Sudoku? Anagrams?

You are still relaxing but doing it differently. And try doing it, that is the reading, the games, etc., in different places. So your relaxation is still real, but different.

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6 Comments on “This is Your Brain on CI – Part 1 of 3”

I recently worked for weeks on an articleâ¦mind-blocked in getting it outâ¦went to a yoga classâ¦the words flowed like water.

And it was (if I may say) some of my best work!

Yeah, this stuff works. Too many CI people get burned outâand their work shows it.

Cheers,

Tim

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[…] When you are doing competitive intelligence (CI), you are relying on your intelligence to drive your research and analysis.But your brain, like any other part of your body, needs proper care and conditioning. What follows here and in the next 2 parts are a few notes on what works for me – and for others as well. […]